


From Under the Tree, Lies a Castle Only For Two

by cherrylng



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Best Friends, Boys Kissing, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-20 12:37:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11921058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylng/pseuds/cherrylng
Summary: Chris found the perfect hideout unknown to anyone but himself far away from town, a place all for himself. Weeks later, he found a trespasser in his hideout.





	1. Chapter 1

1993  
  
  
It started out as a simple mistake and an accusation of trespassing.   
  
In Teignmouth and any other small town or village throughout Britain, almost every teenager  _thinks_  that they have a secret hideout that no one else but either themselves or their own group know it. But to Chris’ awareness, it’s more in reality that some of those hideouts have been used by others before them, which gets risky when the cops find you there doing stuff that you’re not old enough to do yet. Or not supposed to do it in the first place.  
  
For Chris, what he wanted is a personal hideout, unknown to anyone but himself. Somewhere where he can hide away, even if just for a few hours, to relax by himself and do whatever he wants.  
  
He struck lucky as he had found the perfect one at the start of Spring.   
  
It was out of town and off the beaten track towards a forest and it consists of a tree being surrounded by shrubbery and a parasitic plant growing over it. After checking a hard to spot hole and entering through it, he finds that the shrubbery has roughly formed a circle around the tree, the bottom part of the tree’s branches have no leaves as a result of said parasitic plant blocking out sunlight that leaves stopped growing there.  
  
It formed an arch for the creation of a room that is enough to fit two, maybe three, people in it. The leaves from the tree and the parasitic plant are dense but not enough to not allow sunlight to come through between the leaves and lit up the hole.  
  
There was no trash, which means no signs of humans ever coming here before, and it is filled with dried leaves and twigs and it smelled like dirt and rotten dead leaves.   
  
In other words, it was perfect.   
  
The first week that Chris spent his time at his hideout is mainly involved in cleaning the place out, clearing out the dead leaves and twigs to throw them elsewhere. Once done, the space looked a lot bigger and comfortable and ready for a teenage boy to move in and make it his castle.  
  
Weeks after he had found it, Chris found a trespasser in his hideout. He found him just before the trespasser is about to light a cigarette inside his secret spot.  
  
“Matt, what the fuck are you doing here?!”  
  
Matt blinks, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights.  
  
“What—”  
  
“How did you fucking found out my secret hideout?”  
  
Hearing that, Matt looks insulted.  
  
“Your secret hideout?” Matt raises an eyebrow. “This is my spot that  _you’re_  trespassing into!”  
  
“I found this place first! So you’re definitely trespassing, mate!”  
  
“Did not!”  
  
“Did too!”  
  
“Did not!”  
  
“Did too!”  
  
Matt puts his hands up to stop the petty argument and settles it with a simple question.  
  
“When did you find it then?”  
  
He then tells Matt the exact date of when he found it. Hearing that, Matt’s mouth is agape, almost dropping the unlit cigarette still in his mouth.  
  
“I found it just a day after you did.”  
  
“You followed me?”  
  
“No. I wanted to find somewhere to hide away and call it my own and found this place. I seriously thought that this wasn’t found by anyone else. I swear it!”  
  
Entering his secret hideout, Chris makes a face but doesn’t argue back. Matt isn’t lying, he could tell. It puts the puzzles into place of what he’d strangely noticed a few weeks ago.  
  
“I was wondering if I had been clearing the leaves and twigs out a lot faster than usual,” he says. He sits across Matt, looking at him with some skepticism. Matt may be telling the truth to him, but he doesn’t know if that is the full extent of the truth or not. Carefully, he lays out of what is known. “So we’re the only two people who know of this place then.”  
  
“I guess so,” Matt says. “I made sure that no one knows where I am or follow me here. I never suspect that someone else has a claim for this place.”  
  
After hearing what Matt had said, Chris has to think of what to do.   
  
There was no point in kicking Matt out. Based on his words, he found this hideout independently rather than having followed him. He already knows where the hideout is and how to get here without allowing anyone to follow him. Kicking him out would have been a rather dick move to do towards his friend, even if he is from another band in school.  
  
Both he and Matt have a common standpoint in why they wanted to have a hideout, and that is have some place to be away from everyone else. It won’t be his personal hideout to himself anymore, but he can share it to the only other person who found it independently if he is willing to do the same.  
  
“I still say that I found this hideout before you did by a day,” he says. “But since we both have something in common on why we want this place, let’s agree that this secret hideout is ours and we don’t let anyone else but ourselves be welcomed here. Deal?”  
  
Matt appears to not be in disagreement with that. After all, Chris did made a sound offer.  
  
“Deal,” he finally says.  
  
They shook hands to seal the deal. This hideout is theirs from now on.  
  
And then they just sit down, staring at each other and unsure of what to do next.  
  
“So… what do you usually do out here?” Matt asks.  
  
“I drink and smoke a bit,” Chris says, giving a shrug.  
  
Matt raises an eyebrow. “So like the usual stuff that you tend to do with friends but doing it alone?”  
  
“It’s only for the stuff that I don’t want to share with the rest of them. Have the best bits to myself.”  
  
Matt hums in understanding before he pulls a cigarette carton out and hands it to Chris.  
  
“Want one?”  
  
Chris grins, accepting the offer. And thus, in this wooded hideout under a tree is the start of something new between two boys from the same school, living in a world away from the one that they know of.


	2. Chapter 2

1993

 

The tree became their secret hideout. What started out as a hideout for themselves to have their alone time slowly morphed towards coming to the hideout and hanging out.   
  
Having an alone time with the hiding place to themselves was great and all at first, as that was the intention from the start, until they see that time was better spent in the hideout hanging out  _together_  than being alone. After all, there are also goodies involved.  
  
They meet up about two to three times each week, bringing something in their bags or in their pockets, where they share things that they normally don’t share, even between friends. Like the biggest spliff that Matt managed to roll up to share with Chris or the good bottle of spirit that Chris manages to sneak out from his dad’s private alcohol cabinet.  
  
Whenever they talk, the discussions range from comparing their musical tastes and the latest artist that they think sounds good to their ears, to the mundane things happening in their lives or their friends, and to which girl from town/celebrity woman would one of them want to date/bang.  
  
It’s a system that works fine for them. The hideout may no longer become a personal hideout to either of the boys -unless one of them comes at a different time or stay behind a little longer- but it works fine as somewhere to be away from home, from the seaside town, from the world. To Chris and Matt, the hideout is a world in itself for the two of them.   
  
In a way, it is their castle, and they are the lords who have decided not to let others know of their castle.  
  
\-----  
  
One day, on a fine afternoon where all their friends have other activities or jobs or dates to attend to, Chris enters the hideout to find Matt fiddling with a camping stove and also brought along a small metal pot.   
  
“Dude, you want to cook dinner for me today?” Chris teases, tossing his backpack to a corner. “You know this isn’t a Wendy House. It might burn our hideout down along with us.”  
  
Matt stops fiddling with the camping stove and huffs at his morbid sense of humour.  
  
“Would you cook this in a Wendy House?” Matt says, throwing a clear plastic packet to Chris. Inspecting the contents, Chris lets out an impressive ‘woah’.  
  
“Dude, are these magic shrooms?” Chris asks in awe.  
  
Matt nods, his front tooth poking out while grinning.  
  
“And we’re having it all to ourselves,” he says gleefully. From there, Chris knows that it is going to be an interesting day in the hideout. A good kind of interesting, in his opinion.  
  
It’s not the first time that they have had shrooms before, but it’s the first time that they’re sharing it only for two rather than a group at a party.   
  
When Matt hands him a cup filled with the brew after boiling out as much of the mushroom’s flavour and effects as possible, both he and Matt have to wait until the brew has cooled down for them to drink it all.   
  
Staring down at the cup, at what Matt has prepared for them, something feels exhilarating and nerve wracking about having magic mushrooms. It isn’t like taking marijuana or cheap spirits, and Chris has a whole full teacup for himself.   
  
“You scared of a little cup of psychedelic broth?” Matt teases.   
  
“No way,” Chris scoffs. “I’m actually savouring the moment that I’m having a full cup of the brew to drink.”  
  
“I think it’s cooled down enough now,” Matt says after touching the liquid with the tip of his finger. He holds his teacup near towards Chris’. “So then, bottoms up.”   
  
They clinked their cups before they drink the warm brew.  
  
As for the taste, it tastes like what Chris has expected, like a watered down version of mushroom soup when you strip every ingredient but the mushrooms away to boil in the water. Or it should be called mushroom broth to be more accurate. He reminds himself that he isn’t here to savour someone’s attempt at cooking, he’s here to get high. So he finishes his cup in one go.  
  
“You feeling it yet?” Matt asks after finishing his own cup.  
  
“Not yet,” Chris replies. “How about we finish the whole thing? No harm in finishing it in one go.”  
  
Matt agrees with him, so they kept on consuming the brew until the pot is empty. By the time that they have finished drinking it all, they’re starting to feel the effects of the shrooms.  
  
The effects felt more potent by the volume that they drank out of Matt’s brew. It wasn’t just a slight psychedelic effect from having a small sip to share for a group of eight, it was more like, full on sensory overload that came from a drinking so much of it from the small pot.  
  
Stove and pot and other equipment pushed aside, they lay down on the ground, side by side, as their bodies try their best to cope through the effects of the shrooms while their minds and eyes and other senses enjoy it.  
  
It was then when Chris turns his head to look at Matt, staring at those pair of thin lips opened slightly for him to pant softly for air that something odd, something curious came to Chris’ mind.  
  
“Can I kiss you?” he asks before his mind caught up with those words.  
  
He thought that Matt didn’t hear that question, and would have been somewhat relieved if he didn’t hear that, until Matt blinks and turns to look back at him.  
  
“What?”  
  
_Fuck_ , is the first word that came to Chris’ mind, having gotten caught by Matt by his own words.  
  
“C-Can I kiss you, Matt?” Chris asks again, this time more hesitant than the first time.  
  
He doesn’t get a verbal answer at that, and Chris assumes that he wants to say no, but too out of it to say so. Then he notices that Matt is staring at him too, particular on his own lips. He takes his chance from that and closes in for the kill.  
  
He has kissed many times before with the girls that he had dated before, but kissing Matt like this, in a slow and tentative manner, it felt like his first time all over again, which it technically is. He keeps expecting that this wouldn’t last for long, that Matt will snap out of stupor to break the kiss, but he doesn’t. Instead, the older teen allows him to continue.  
  
The first time tends to be a nervous one, of stepping into the unknown boundaries and having to start from there. It didn’t start out fantastic or fulfilling any expectations, yet Chris likes it and judging from how Matt is gripping onto his shirt, so does he.  
  
He let his tongue out and gingerly lick on Matt’s lips, asking for entrance. His lips parted, and Chris’ tongue enters his mouth. He licks at the roof of his mouth, feeling Matt’s tongue sliding against his own. Sometime in that kiss, Chris could have sworn that he heard someone moaning. Which of them did it, he doesn’t have a clue, far too preoccupied with what he’s doing right now.  
  
His mind is feverish, needing to keep on at it and have some more. His arms are wrapped around Matt’s lithe body to keep him close, like he wants to merge with Matt right here, right now and never make this stop.  
  
When he pulls away, Chris can see Matt’s eyes turned almost black, the pupil of his eyes dilated to the point that blue irises are hard to see. Whether they are due to the shrooms or from making out, Chris isn’t sure, but looking at it long enough pushes him back to kissing him.  
  
They part again if only because Matt needed to say something to Chris.  
  
“This is just a one time thing,” he says.  
  
“Yeah,” Chris nods. “One time.”  
  
They went back on the business of making out.  
  
Whenever they remember this particular event, of the first kiss that they've shared, the shrooms are the easiest to point out and blame for what happened.

**Author's Note:**

> As for all the stories that I've written lately that involves sex in it, the porn is what starts first before the story did. In this case, it is Chris and Matt in their teenage years. I set this at 1993 before it'll end somewhere in 1995, right after Reading Festival. Do comment if you liked it!


End file.
